The Factors of Production in economic theory suggest that man is constantly learning how to best utilize land, labor and capital. Over the course of time, many improvements have been made in the ways of acquiring both land and capital, but little has been done in the way of acquiring labor resources, particularly at a time when it is needed. Many times, labor resources are insufficient. As humankind moves into the 21st Century, we find that the need for labor resources has shifted. In the 18th and 19th Centuries, during the Industrial Revolution, workers moved from the rural, farm setting, to the cities where they became employed in innovations in textiles, steam power, chemical manufacturing and iron founding. In that new high-volume manufacturing environment, many hands were required to get the work done.
Given today's innovations, fewer hands are required because so many of the functions that used to be performed by people, are now performed by machines, as we have become more automated. During the Information Age (circa 1971-1991), the Knowledge Age (circa 1991 to 2002), and the Intangible Economy (2002-present) the primary Factors of Production have become less concrete. Prior to the Information Age land, labor, and capital were used to create substantial wealth due to their scarcity. The factors of production in the current age are knowledge, collaboration, process-engagement, and time quality. (See the Factors_of_production html at wikipedia.org.)
In fact, in the current age, we are still trying to figure out the best way to use our labor resources. So much of what the labor force does today is done on computers. What are the implications to current employers as they consider that their employees could possibly work from home? Also, given the current lack of loyalty on the part of both employers and employees, people are looking for “alternative” working arrangements. For instance, many people do not want to put all of their eggs in one basket, so to speak, and put their entire livelihood in the hands of a single employer. Many workers are interested in multiple part-time arrangements, which are also attractive to employers since the cost of healthcare in the United States is growing exponentially, and benefits are typically not provided to part-time workers. Employers are constantly looking for opportunities to reduce costs. Given that the employees are usually one of the greatest costs to a business, it is also one of the first places to look for a reduction in costs. As employees understand their disposability—their willingness to depend on one company to provide stable employment, and thus to be able to meet their financial obligations—they have been searching for alternatives.
Further, in a world that has become increasingly fast-paced, with availability of nearly instantaneous communication, society has become dependent on our ability to communicate instantly, using for instance instant messaging, calling on cell phones, text messaging, emailing and retrieving email on handheld devices, and even video chatting. Given the shift in use of labor and the ability to communicate instantly, what was missing was the ability to identify and acquire needed resources, exactly when they are needed. As used herein, the term “resource” is not inclusive to labor resources, but could also apply to products or information. Alternatively, the term “resource” may also be defined as provision of an actual service, rather than, for instance, a consultation.
Many business processes today depend upon the efficient communication with a large number of staff, customers, prospects, personnel, contacts, and the like. Current methods of communicating, for instance with members of current staff, are the antithesis of efficiency. Take for instance, the case of a hospital that has had a registered nurse call in sick before a shift. In most instances, legislation requires a certain number of registered nurses (RN's) be present per number of patients. In order to fill this vital opening, some office administrator would be subjected to calling a list of individuals to attempt to fill the opening. The administrator would sit down with the list and start calling—first the home number. When unable to reach the person at home, the administrator might call a cell phone number. If unable to reach the person via cell phone, they might try any other known number, and so on, until they had either exhausted known phone numbers for that person, or simply moved on to the next person on the list. In addition, the administrator would leave messages at each phone number. The administrator might also send emails (at more than one email address) or text messages. Of course, each of these modes of communicating would be employed for multiple persons on a call list. Unless an individual is reached on the phone that is willing to cover the shift, it is likely that the office administrator is forced to sift through numerous individual responses to compile various answers or to find the one answer needed to answer the specific question—e.g. can you work the 8:00 pm to 8:00 am shift tonight? Further, many of these various requests will be answered, resulting in the office administrator having to evaluate the responses manually. Once each of these methods results in a contact with its intended party and, further, results in a response that is the one sought, more action is required on the part of the sender to initiate subsequent actions such as order placement, shift fulfillment, resource allocation, appointment scheduling, emergency services activation, law enforcement engagement, medical provider alerts, etc. This often requires repeat attempts to contact the original message recipient often going through multiple channels of communication with many failures to connect often resulting in messages left, delayed or absent follow-up responses and greater inefficiencies.
What was needed was a central location (internet portal) that would allow communication with targeted individuals (based on any number of criteria) via any communications device of their choosing. This type of instant communication increases efficiencies many fold, facilitates communications and allows for the real-time allocation of resources, labor and goods.